The benefits of breast feeding for healthy growth of infants are well known. Various medical studies attribute breast feeding with enhanced physical and cognitive development for newborns and with the increased ability to fight infections and illnesses.
However, with the increasingly hectic pace of life, mothers of infants, especially those who are working, find it difficult to breast feed their children at regular and frequent intervals. This problem is compounded when women have to travel.
Various types of breast pumps and storage containers are presently available that allow a mother to extract her milk and keep it for storage. The stored milk can then be fed to the infant by a care giver or any other person who takes care of the baby in the absence of the mother. It is essential, however, for the stored milk to be properly stored and fed to an infant within a specific period of time after the milk was first extracted from a woman.
When large quantities of milk are stored in advance, there is a possibility that some of the stored milk may not be fed to the infant, and it remains unused in the refrigerator for several days. In such a scenario, in the absence of any reliable source of information regarding the date the milk was expressed, a care giver may not know if the milk stored is fresh or leftover. Further, the care giver may also erroneously feed the baby with stale milk, which may endanger the baby's health with problems such as indigestion or food poisoning.
One solution to this problem is that mothers may mark milk containers by writing on them or pasting on labels with date information. However, manual labeling of the containers every time the milk is expressed is time consuming, inconvenient, and difficult to do on a repeated basis. Since breast feeding is a long term activity that continues for at least several months, therefore, there is a need for methods and systems for management of breast milk storage, which enable providing the necessary information regarding the date of storage and are easy to use. There is also a need to provide nursing mothers with a convenient kit that includes such storage systems with educational information.
Further, it would be desirable to similarly mark containers that are used for storing food to eliminate food waste and potential health issues with respect to expired or spoiled food. In addition, some care givers may choose to cook and/or process their own baby food, including fruit and vegetable products. Thus, there is a need for providing methods and systems for the similar management of food storage, which enable providing the necessary information regarding the date of storage and are easy to use.
Additionally, it would be desirable to similarly mark containers that are used for storing other perishable items to eliminate potential health issues. For example, certain cosmetic items have a limited viable shelf life; some preparations or herbal remedies may be made by the consumer and subsequently stored for later use. Thus, there is a need for providing methods and systems for the similar management of the storage of perishable items, which enable providing the necessary information regarding the date of storage and are easy to use.